How To Save A Life
by C-L-SC
Summary: Bella Swan has come out of a terrible past and built a family out of her closest friends. As her past starts to catch up with her, and soon there is more than one catching her eye. A teen drama with real meaning. This is an AH, ExB story  eventually


**Excuse me if there are mistakes, with grammar or names or anything else. I don't own Twilight, as you're most likely already aware, but this is a story which has been hanging about for a long time now, and although it was originally with different characters, forgive me for my love of all things Edward.**

**Also, just to say, the first few chapters are background, the main story will be set in a different time frame, with very few of the characters you'll meet here.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

**Prologue**

"_When trying to be a better person; you're trying to be someone you're not. It never lasts."_

I have to choose. There are two options, and I have to decide between them. Like if there were two roads in front of me: I have to choose one route.

One road looks perfect, has no road works or traffic; quiet, yet quietly amazing. But it almost seems too good to be true.

I've been down this road before, and it's not a choice I regret. It's a great route to take, and I should take the opportunity while I have it. But because I've been evading taking this route for a while, I don't know if it will be the same.

Then, there's the other road. It also looks in great condition, but if you look closer, then you can see the cracks. There are bumps and potholes that need to be smoothed down and filled up, but apart from that, it's fantastic, and I want to choose this route.

It's just that I don't know what is at the other end of this road. I don't know if the potholes and bumps and can be just simply smoothed over. If I make this choice, it will either have fantastic or disastrous consequences.

But I can't bring myself to move closer. I'm scared.

The lights are green and I just can't hit the accelerator. There are no other cars around, and I know my decision needs to be made.

Scolding myself for spending so much time thinking about it, I slam on the accelerator, and, ignoring all my earlier thoughts, I yank the driving wheel in the opposite direction, and begin to rush towards my chosen destination.

I knew that, in the long run, this would be the right decision, however much I may at times regret it.

**How to Save a Life**

My name is Isabella Swan, and on August 14th, 2006, it happened. My life ended.

For three minutes and seventeen seconds. Or so I'm told. I don't remember all the details.

I was thirteen years old, fourteen that November, and I went round to my friend Jessica's house to help her decide what to wear.

-

Like every day, on August 14th, the silence between Jasper and I seemed to never get awkward. We would know that the other was thinking (or sleeping), so neither of us was going to squeal _"Awkward Silence!" _and have a laughing fit. Not that I don't love Rosalie's way of awaking me from my reveries, it's just I never could understand how she was always so wonderfully happy, all the time.

I take one look at her and I'm amazed. She is so beautiful, with gorgeous, natural bright blond hair, almost down to her waist, which makes everyone jealous. She is thin, but not attractively so, she has a gorgeous figure that most girls would kill for.

She quite obviously attracts a lot of boy attention, but the people who get close to her are astounded by the person they find. This sweet, caring girl who just loves her life. I wish I was her.

Not that I don't love my life, I do, I just wish it wasn't so screwed up half the time. I am a thirteen year-old walking disaster, and, for once, that is not a reference to my klutz tendencies. But it all feels like it's my fault.

My mom and dad married young; high school sweethearts. She was a beautiful French teenager with hair as mahogany as my own, and had just moved to California, when my dad met her, and tutored her in English. My dad, Charlie, claims she didn't need the tutoring; she just wanted to be around him.

He used to talk about my mom so much. Now, it's only on birthdays, or at Christmas. My parents had two kids before me, my eldest brother Rob, or Robert, and my other brother "J", or Justin. My mom Renee died in childbirth with me.

Deep down, I know that neither J nor my dad has ever truly forgiven me for that. I know it wasn't my fault, and Rob likes to drill that into me, but I can't help feeling that because of me, we all missed out.

When I was three years old, my dad re-married, to Victoria. They were "in love", and she decided because their love was "everlasting, and unconditional" she would legally adopt my brothers and I.

Obviously, the "love" wore out, and the arguments got louder and louder, until my dad wanted a divorce.

I was six years old.

She had it coming, but claimed she had no idea. My dad works in Hollywood, as a director and producer, and gets to travel all over the world when he has a big job. To spite my father, Victoria applied for sole custody of the three of us. Because my father would be out of the country so often, it was granted.

It was either that or living on a farm with my French grandparents, neither of whom knew what a television was. So, my brothers and I were forced to live with psycho-bitch Victoria, as her boyfriends came and went. One stayed. Her husband, James, is a nice enough guy.

He's a doctor, her job changes with her mood.

She painted the dining room cream and then claimed for an entire year she was a freelance decorator.

We lived in the house my dad originally owned, the one I was brought up in, but Victoria now legally owned it because my dad gave into nearly every one of her demands.

So my dad bought a house in the suburbs, about an hour out of town. Well, a house doesn't quite give it enough credit: it is a mansion, and a huge one at that.

There are countless acres of land, with a private little lake about 10 acres out. There are tennis courts, a basketball court, an outdoor swimming pool with a built in Jacuzzi, an orchard, a massive trampoline, a tree house, and the porch has a pillar at either side.

It's literally perfect, like something you would see in "The OC", or in a magazine. And that's just the outside. The inside is just as perfect. Let's just say, I have my own walk-in closet, bigger than my bedroom at Victoria's house. I love my dad.

I do not love Victoria. To say she doesn't care in any way about my brothers or I would be an understatement. She doesn't care if and when we're home, and we all come and go as we please.

My dad is hardly ever at home, and so we use his house a lot. Victoria can go through phases where she wants us to be "a close-knit family", which we all ignore. Sometimes when she would call for dinner, I'd climb out of my window, through the old oak tree, and into Jasper's bedroom, just to escape a dinner with this woman.

To be fair, though, I use that route quite a lot, especially when I need to be places at night. I was so grateful they never thought about moving, though they had many reasons to.

Jasper is my next-door neighbour, and basically my best friend. My mom and his were best friends before she passed, and I think Jane, Mrs Whitlock, sees some of her in me.

My mom and Jane were also what some call "baby buddies". A few weird coincidences, and a dinner at an Indian restaurant later meant Jasper and I were born on the same day, November 19.

I grew up right beside him, and practically as one of his family. I would spend thanksgiving there, and most of Christmas too. They never seemed to mind, and I was always so grateful for their hospitality. Not only did they have to put up with me at all holidays, Alice would nearly always come too.

Alice is my other best friend. We met when we were babies, and she, Jasper and myself instantly became extremely close friends. We grew up together, we were inseparable, and we all lived at each other's houses, until we were eight years old, when Alice's dad died.

He worked for a successful investment company, and was on a business trip to San Francisco, when an earthquake struck. It was not a widely reported one, there were four casualties.

Alice was never the same after that day. She was happy, and would get excited at the same things as I, but part of her died on that day, and she never regained that.

After Alice's dad had died, she left the school Jasper and I attended, and her mom sent her to an all-girl's boarding school on the outskirts of the city. She would come to mine or Jasper's at weekends and for holidays, and slowly, Jasper and I got used to not being around her 24/7.

-

I strained my neck to see the time was five minutes to three. At three o'clock I was supposed to be ready to be driven to Jessica's house, to drop off the shoes she wanted to wear that night.

I got up off my bed, as did Jasper, before stretching and yawning my way towards my wardrobe. Jasper tried to trip me up before giving me a goodbye hug, climbing out of my window, onto the branches of the large oak tree, and into his bedroom window.

I slipped easily into my dark blue sweater and Levi's, whilst my mind wondered to the main thing on every thirteen or fourteen year olds mind: High School. The four years of hell that at one point awaits us all, and feels interminable throughout.

Jasper and I were planning to attend different high schools, which I was upset about, but would get used to. With Alice still at boarding school, it would be the first time we were all apart.

I reminded myself it would not be too bad: Rosalie and Jessica, two girls I had befriended in the past year, were going to the same school as me, as well as a couple of boys I vaguely remembering growing up with.

However, there was also another rather sizeable downside to the arrangement: Lauren "JJ" Mallory would also be attending the same school as I in the fall.

JJ Mallory is the clichéd bitch. Fake, orange, mean for no reason, stuffed bra, short skirt, you name it, it describes her. She only got the nickname "JJ" because one day she claimed it was her first two initials. We soon reminded her that her initials were L.J.M. She has dark hair, but jokes about dying it so she can have an excuse to be stupid – which she already is.

But usually after she says something like that Rose will glare until JJ says something else dumb.

Honest to God, she once changed her facebook status to "**JJ Hawkins… **Where's North Dakota?" She thinks when she says stuff like that, we're laughing with her. My case and point right there.

My thoughts steered as clear as they could of JJ, as I knew I would only clench my fists and stare at a poster of Adam Brody to calm down. Adam Brody. Now there is someone we can all enjoy looking at.

Beauty deserves to be admired, right? Right. Otherwise "The O.C." wouldn't have existed. My thoughts then drifted into the trials and tribulations of the rich and beautiful teens of Orange County, California. Man, that show was good.

-

And I remember my thoughts being cruelly interrupted by my elder brother J, nearly slamming my door down. I opened the door and smiled politely before we both left the house in the black BMW 4x4 he shared with my eldest brother Rob. It was a present for the two of them to share, my dad's way of making going away for _another _three months seem ok. They worked on J very easily, Rob and myself; not so much.

I sat staring happily into space during most of the car journey, thinking of the dread of starting high school while still thirteen, yet the joy of seeing my old friends along with making a ton of new ones.

The silence with my brother Justin, "J", in the car was very different than with Jasper. It was awkward, he would tap his foot, I would fiddle with my fingers, he would ask a question about my life, I would answer evasively, then I would ask him, and he would return the favour. Eventually, Jessica's nothing-short-of-a-mansion came into view.

I happily exited the car, telling J I would call him later, knowing full well I would text him once I had made plans that included anything but being picked up by my brother and driven home before "curfew".

I say "curfew", there was no curfew. It was an unwritten rule between my brothers and I that if you were not home before one thirty in the morning, you were drunk and/or getting laid, and in my case, about to be collected and lectured.

Jessica's housekeeper Jasmine greeted me welcomingly at the door, before I was ushered upstairs in the direction of Jessica's bedroom. I heard my name being called behind me, and I turned my head confusedly to see the face of a cheerful old friend.

"Tyler? Hi!" I exclaimed, surprised by his presence. He and I had been very close friends in Junior High, but over the summer I had hardly seen him or his brothers.

"Hey, how are you?" Now he was walking towards me, completely disregarding the fact that Jessica's elder brother Eric was now annihilating him in the video game they were playing. Eric caught sight of me and rolled his eyes, focussing on winning the game and beating his high score.

"I'm good, Ty, how about you? How's your summer been?" I said as he pulled me into a tight hug.

"Good and good. I went to Europe, actually, which was really fun. You?"

"I spent most of it with my dad, here, there and everywhere really. Apart from that, not much. So… are you going to that bonfire tomorrow?"

The bonfire was an annual tradition for all teens in Santa Cruz. Before the start of school, you had to have a bonfire. It was like a rule.

"Well, I was thinking about it; if you're going then I'll join you…" he trailed off.

He shook his head out of his thoughts. "What are you up to tonight? We haven't spent quality time together in… forever, and, we need to catch up. What do you think?"

"Does somebody miss me?" I teased, while I caught Eric rolling his eyes out of the corner of my eye. It seemed Tyler caught him too, as he gave him a dirty look before turning his attention back to me. "What were you going to be doing tonight anyway?"

"Well, my brother's picking me up later, and I was planning on going home. You?" Now it was almost too obvious that I was planning something, so I stopped smirking.

"That sounds like a _really_ interesting night. I hope you won't miss it too much," before he had a chance to interrogate me any longer, I was practically skipping up the staircase.

"Jessica Annabelle Stanley!" I squealed once outside her door.

"Thank God you are here! And you brought the shoes! I love you!" I could tell she was in a panic, so I decided to try my best to calm her down.

"Love you too Jess, but, what's wrong?" I asked as calmly as I could, fighting back the laughs at her hair as I closed the door behind me.

"What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong is that I have a date with Pete, and before you ask, yes, super-hot lifeguard Pete, and I have nothing to wear, along with my hair not being done and my skin being a mess! That's what's wrong!" She shrieked while pacing up and down. I got up and sat her down where I had previously been sitting while trying to get her to breathe calmly.

"Jessica, we have plenty of time to sort all of that. I will do your hair and your make-up, and seeing as I know your wardrobe as well as I know my own, I can give you advice on what to wear while I do your hair and make-up. Does that sound alright?" She was remarkably calmer now, breathing evenly and shoulders relaxed. I could already feel the yes when I looked into her eyes for approval.

"Have I told you recently that I love you?" She said while sighing, which was almost a release of nearly all the tension in her muscles.

"Yeah, about a minute ago." That put a smile on her face. She really was quite gorgeous when she smiled. No wonder everybody loved to make her laugh. That smile mixed in with her squawk of a laugh, no wonder it's so infectious. "Come on then; let's start with your hair."

Usually it would be Jessica trying to style others, but she always gave in to me. She said I had some sort of weird way of doing it which made her look nice. I always ignored these types of comments, I never really thought I was good at that sort of girly stuff.

-

"So... do you want to go downstairs and show everybody?" I asked, while looking at her standing beside me in the mirror. She finally decided on her D&G black lace strapless mini-dress with my Gucci black lace-up high heels with gold laces and gold jewellery.

"Are you kidding? My dad is at home, and if he sees me like this he'll probably never let me out of the house again, and he'll more than likely send me to live in a convent. I think just between us is best," I nodded my head in agreement, and she gave me a tight squeeze around the waist and thanked me. I told her it was nothing, I was more than happy to help her out.

I stood there, staring deep into the eyes of my reflection. No, I was not going to go there today. Not after the summer I had had. I refused to let that get the better of me again. I was stronger now.

-

Jess and I sat on her bed talking about our friends and how high school is going to be so different and how it is going to change everything. I did not know that it was actually today that would be the one to change everything.

We were in the middle of a laughing fit over one of her stories when there was a slow knock at the door. Jessica told whoever it was to come in, and the door opened to reveal Jasmine.

She said that Tyler wished to talk to us both, and Jess looked at me to find a hysterical wreck before she invited Ty in. Tyler reluctantly entered, staring at me while the tears of laughter began to stream down my face.

He then asked Jess what she had done to me, at which point I started to calm down by firstly wiping the tears from my face.

"You look nice," Tyler told Jess politely.

Before he could even take a breath, Jess had already said, "but you'll always be in love with her, right?" whilst signalling toward me.

Tyler awkwardly laughed while I stared at Jess, waiting for an explanation. She turned away, and he once again focussed his attention on me.

"I was hoping you would explain your plan," he awkwardly said, trying not to make Jess feel too left out in her own room.

"Oh yeah, we're hanging out tonight because you obviously miss me way too much and I can't bear it." I said sarcastically as I caught Becca giving me strange looks.

_They obviously run in the family,_ I thought as I let out a small chuckle before turning back toward Tyler. "And your night sounded boring so I made it interesting," he nodded his head and let out a small laugh at my blunt comments.

"You are certainly one to tell it like it is, aren't you?" Tyler choked out, fighting his laughter. "I was just wondering because my brother is coming to pick me up in about two minutes and I was wondering what the first part of your plan was," Tyler said while looking at what I was wearing.

I suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. I tried to get the eye contact back, which I eventually did.

"On the way to your house we go past my dad's, and my dad isn't back for another week, so we can go there if you want." I said, once again trying to catch his attention with my eyes.

"Good plan." he asked, still not looking me in the eye.

"Great."

I smiled widely as I got up off of Jessica's bed, and heard the doorbell ring.

"That'll be Tim, so let's go," he ordered while helping me up. I gave Jess a goodbye and good-luck-on-your-date hug before I made my way, with Ty close by my side, down the stairs to find Tim, Tyler's elder brother, waiting just inside the door for him.

"Tim, I'm going to Bella's, so could you possibly drop us off at her dad's?" he pleaded with his free-spirit brother.

Tim was always the funny one. Tyler's a twin with his brother Edward, and Tim uses the fact that they don't like each other to his clear advantage. It is very funny to witness, as well as see the looks on all their faces.

"Sure, but I guess there's no point in asking when you'll be home if you're going with her," he said sarcastically as he then looked towards me.

"Isabella, it's been a while," he tried to make polite conversation.

"It's actually been three days, remember, I saw you at the mall," Tim knows I don't do polite conversation.

"Good to see you," he gave me a weird smirk as I curiously examined it.

"Good to see you too," I returned the favour by raising an eyebrow and smiling back.

"Ok, Bella, we need to get one thing straight. Don't flirt with my brother when I'm right here," Tyler then added.

"I wasn't flirting," I shrugged as he gave me that _sure, sure_ look and I looked back to Tim.

"And as for you, I thought we got it straight that she, of all girls, is off limits," Tyler then told Tim.

"I'm sorry, I must have forgotten the forty-seventh lecture you gave regarding reasons I am not allowed to date your friend and hopeful-future-girlfriend," and that is why I loved Tim.

He was never afraid to tell the honest truth, however embarrassing it may be for the people involved. Tim raised his eyebrows, and as Will must have thought Tim his only option in getting home, so, after having given him a dirty look, walked out of the house and towards the Lexus Tim received on his seventeenth birthday. I said thank you for having me to Jasmine, before pottering out of the door.

I turned to find Tim right by my side. "You know that was a pretty dirty look Tyler gave you, they don't get much dirtier than that with Ty."

"I know, right? I felt like crying my eyes out. Those looks, they just…" he sniffed, wiping a fake tear from his eye, and rolling his eyes.

"I taught you that tear thing; don't use it on me," I expected credit for that one.

"Thank you, it was very much appreciated," he said once again in his sarcastic voice. I gave him an evil look as I opened the rear left door in the car as he got in the front left door. Only then did I realise Tyler's twin brother Edward was sitting in the front right seat, and was staring at me.

I smiled sweetly before I turned towards Tyler and we started listening, and sometimes lip-syncing, along to my iPod.

As Tyler's family, The Cullens, and my dad both live quite far out of town, you always have to take the highway to get out of town before you are even close to either of our houses.

Edward wasn't coming home either, and was spending the evening at his friend Grant's house, which was before the highway was even a kilometre away. Once on the highway, it was beginning to get dark; and the lights at the side of the road became brighter and brighter as the journey went on. Tyler and I stopped listening to my iPod and started listening to Tim's arguments with the traffic and other drivers.

"I can't wait until I am able to drive," Tyler added while Tim tensed up behind the wheel.

"Neither can I," I added, trying to find a comfortable spot on his shoulder to sink my head into.

"What are you talking about? You are the youngest of our friends; we'll all have had our licences taken off of us by the time you get your provisional," he joked although knowing full well I wouldn't find it funny.

"I am the same age as Jasper, so I'm not the youngest. Ha!" I retorted. He could tell I was trying to be smart so he went with the most obvious response.

"You realise that you are technically younger than Jasper."

"Shut up Tyler," he laughed at me, even though there was really nothing to laugh at. Even Tim got a laugh. I relaxed deeper into his shoulder.

"Are we really not there yet?" he asked while Tim tried his hardest to focus on the road.

"We should be, but I am going slowly. At this time, you get a lot of lunatics on the roads."

"Can't we just hurry up?" Tyler impatiently asked.

"Fine," Tim sighed as he picked up the speed of the car dramatically.

Tyler rested his head on mine as the car went past the speed limit.

We whizzed past another few cars before coming to a crossroads, at which we had right of way. Tim naturally sped into the crossroads.

My head rose and looked in the direction of the two bright lights. I knew they were speeding, but everything, including myself, seemed to be in slow motion.

I was helpless; there was absolutely nothing I could do. I tried to look past the blinding lights and saw a vague image of a dark green Range Rover. My thoughts and my head turned to Tim's car.

Toppled.

Twisted.

Crushed.

Some of my last memories of that day involve the sound of the crunching of metal all around me; along with the feeling of a full window of glass smashing and falling onto my neck and shoulders; the scent of the gas dripping slowly out of the car; the sight of my ruined clothes; the taste of everything that I seemed to be coughing up over myself; and having all of these feelings when I was in an overturned car.

Yet the last memory of that day I have was when I was out of the car, my heart was still beating, I was finding it hard to breathe and I was coughing incessantly.

But I looked, disorientated as I was, around me to find myself being held in the arms of a boy. A boy who looked relatively near to my age; who had weird shiny hair and pale white skin and beautiful bone structure in his cheekbones and jaw line.

He looked deep into my weak and vulnerable eyes before I slowly choked out "make sure they're ok". The boy looked up and I saw his expression go from bad to worse. The boy then once again looked at me, looking as though he felt as helpless as I earlier had.

The boy then said, "I need to help you first". He was the boy who saved my life.

He was a boy named Edward Cullen.

And the memory stops.

**-**

**Thanks for reading! Now there's a green button down there, and I'd really like to know your thoughts! Please! x**


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